Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick Page B

was out in the hall, hurrying toward his parked, unmarked prowl car. Should I go this way? he wondered. Out of uniform? No. He ran back to the door of their conapt—and found it locked.
    “Don’t try to come back,” Bethel said. “I’m getting a divorce.” Even through the heavy servofome door her voice was clear. “As far as I’m concerned you don’t live here.”
    “I want,” he grated, “my uniform.”
    There was no response. The door stayed shut.
    In his prowl car on the roof parking lot he kept a spare doorkey; once more he raced toward the ascent runnel. She can’t come between me and my uniform, he declared to himself. That’s illegal. Reaching his car he fumbled in the glove compartment. Aw, the hell with it; he got in behind the wheel, started up the engine. As long as I have my gun, he said to himself; he tugged it from his shoulder holster, checked to be sure all twelve chambers were loaded—except the one against which the half-cocked firing pin potentially rested—and then zoomed off into the early evening Los Angeles sky.
    Five minutes later he landed on the deserted—or rather almost deserted—roof parking lot of the People’s Topical Library. Expertly, he flashed his light into each of the parked aircars. All belonged to Erads, except one registered to Mavis McGuire. So he knew who he could expect to find in the Library besides Lotta Hermes: a gang of at least three Erads and the Chief Librarian.
    He quickly reached the roof entrance of the Library, and found it locked. Well, he thought, naturally; it’s after hours. But I know she’s in there, he thought, even if her car isn’t parked up here; she probably came by taxi. Probably she was afraid to drive.
    From the trunk of his prowl car he got a lock-analyzer, carried it by its worn leather strap—it had seen a good deal of service—to the Library door. Set in motion, the analyzer probed the lock, listened, then developed a proper tumbler-lift pattern; the door swung open, unlocked, with no damage done to it, no proof that it had been forced.
    He returned the lock-analyzer to the car’s trunk; then, pausing, inspected the mass of gear which he habitually carted about; what else might help him? Riot gas? Its use could be reported to his superiors in the department; he’d be in trouble. Cephalic-wave detection apparatus, he decided; it’ll tell me how many people are in the vicinity and it’ll plot their paths; I’ll know who’s converging on me and from where. So he took the cephalic-wave detector, snapped it on and set it for minimum range; at once the sweep of its scope-screen displayed five distinct dots, five human brains at work within yards from him, probably on the top floor of the Library. He then set the detector for maximum range, and now made out seven dots; so in all, he had six Library officials to cope with, plus Lotta Hermes, whom he assumed to be one of the dots.
    He assumed she was still alive, as well as still in the Library.
    However, before he entered the Library by its now unlocked roof door, he seated himself in the front of his prowl car, picked up the vidphone receiver, and dialed the number of the Flask of Hermes Vitarium; he had that number clear in his mind, now.
    “Flask of Hermes Vitarium,” R.C. Buckley said, appearing in cameo on the vidphone screen.
    “I’d like to talk to Lotta,” Tinbane said.
    “Let me check.” Buckley disappeared briefly, then returned. “Seb says she hasn’t come back from the Library. He sent her there to do some research for him—just a second; here’s Seb.”
    Now the somber, intelligent features of Sebastian Hermes appeared on the screen. “No, she hasn’t come back, and I’m really worried. I’m beginning to regret that I sent her; maybe I ought to call the Library and ask about her.”
    “You’d be wasting your time,” Tinbane said. “I’m at the Library now, parked on the roof. I know she’s in there. The Library is locked up, but that’s no problem;